Toward a linguistically grounded dialog model for chatbot design

Abstract

The increasing interest in various types of conversational interfaces has been supported by a progressive standardization of the technological frameworks used to build them. However, the landscape of available methodological frameworks for designing conversations is much more fragmented. We propose a highly generalizable methodology for designing conversational flows rooted in a functionalist-pragmatics perspective, with an explicit adherence to a conversationalist approach. In parallel, we elaborate a practical-procedural workflow for undertaking chatbots projects in which we situate the theoretical starting point. At last, we elaborate a general case-study on which we transpose the identified approach in Italian language and using one of the most authoritative NLU platforms.